The city is a nice place you always think about escaping…
By klisterpete and akay.

High in a rocky tree-covered area between two busy highways, a minature Swedish summer cottage painted traditional red with white trim suddenly appeared. Of course, it didn’t actually appear, klisterpete and akay carried it up there. They built the red picket fence to surround the tiny grassy area. They hung the clothes line across the yard. They brought the promise of the swedish countryside everyone wants to escape to, right into the middle of the city. They took an unused, unappreciated space and made it a charming and peaceful place of wonder despite the traffic below, the train passing on its tracks behind, buildings stretching out farther behind those…

What if more people made the places they ARE the places they WANT TO BE? It’s not so hard.

black & white steez. lines, flow, women, nature – HYURO got into it by collaborating with escif, one of my favourites who i blogged about here.
now, any graffiti masters wanna take me under their wing, show me the stuff?

Baglione makes cool art. A lot of the stuff I’ve seen by him is on paper, but these are some of his works on walls and in public. The graffiti-debates continue in Toronto these days, spurred on by a suburban Mayor who is out of touch with the urban core of the City. It’s making me excited for spring & the new work going up.

An interesting wheatpaste / paint mural combo. Playing on the notion of paper as an ephemeral medium (when pasted out-of-doors, especially). Over time, the piece will disintegrate but also introduce a new mural.
I like this idea. From overunder, who also seems to be responsible for my favourite blog / project idea of recent times – blogcabinbrooklyn.

About 40 Toronto graffiti writers and street artists were given a paper TTC streetcar to use as a canvas – kind of an exercise in meta-graf.
The streetcar is one of my favourite things about Toronto; the aesthetics and the principles.
That said, I often find myself wishing for the days of the old city: when NewYorkCity Transit Authority vehicles actually served as a canvas for an emerging movement of spraycan art.
I don’t think the TTC had the same sort of thing going on, even in the ’70s & 80s, but I’d like to see more of this city painted, stickered, stenciled.

*** If you’d like more info on the real Transit City (and how to save it!) – Toronto’s own comprehensive transit strategy for the twenty-first century – click here and here. Or write your Councillor.***

I like bridges a lot. The other day, a new holiday in Ontario, I wandered down the tracks from my house and found myself under a series of bridges with a bunch of really great graffiti. Some of my favourite stuff was by ‘BACON’ – turns out, he’s quite prolific around tdot, representing HSA, DP and MOLOTOW (paint+marker makers).
I took some photos myself, I’ll post them some other time. Until then, enjoy.